Well hello to anybody who has decided to give this fanfic a read. First off is the disclaimer saying I don't own Avatar and its all James Cameron's and all that. Second I guess, is that this story has floated around in my head for months and I am finally putting it out there. Third...there is no third but there is a fourth (how that works, I don't know)

This is my first fanfic so read and review, I want to know what others think. And I don't have a spell check thing on my computer so there will be spelling errors, I will try to stamp them out though.

Ultimatum
chp. 1

Ivan stared out the mess hall windows at the sun rising over the tree line outside of Hell's Gate. It was six in the morning; it took Ivan a long time to get used to the different time frame on Pandora. But now he was always the first person on base to wake up, he hadn't touched the coffee he made for himself, mostly because he was horrible at making any type of food or drink. He looked out at the sky, later that afternoon Jake Sully and some other Na'vi would be flying in to check up on everyone and talk to Max; Ivan needed to speak with Jake.

He heard footsteps and looked to see a woman, she looked so familiar and only one name came to mind.

"Trudy?" Ivan asked the woman as she walked into the mess hall.

The woman jumped, not expecting random questions from someone she didn't notice in the room. "Uhh, No. Ivan are you okay?"

Ivan shook his head and suddenly the Image of Trudy was gone. Replaced by Cpl. Katherine, one of the 58 humans that chose to stay behind on Pandora. He looked back out the window and remembered that Trudy had died almost a year ago, shot down by that bastard Quaritch.

"Ivan? Ivan? You ain't having a stroke are you?" Katherine asked as she walked up to him.

"No...I'm fine" Ivan replied in a low voice.

"Well you don't sound fine. Why the hell you call me Trudy?"

"I don't know, you look like her I guess."

The short red-headed woman put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to face her. "I don't look at all like Trudy, we don't even have the same hair color." She said with a small laugh "You haven't gone and lost your mind on us have you?"

Ivan looked back out the window, and swirled the coffee in his hand "No, just alot on my mind. Jake is coming in today."

"Well? You going to ask him?"

"Not like I have any other choice." Ivan replied in an almost angry tone.

Katherine left Ivan and started digging through the large freezers in the kitchen, mumbling a low curse when she finds the same couple food choices they have had for the past year, and for the rest of their lives. She looked back up to find Ivan still blankly staring out the windows.

"So, uhh. How is it?" Katherine asked him from the kitchen.

"How's what? The coffee? Tastes like shit."

She huffed, "No, not your horrible coffee. The thing you need to talk to Cpl. Sully about."

Ivan looked at her, then back outside. Remembering the day when he found out. "Well" Ivan said with a sigh. "Max and the others say if I start treatment now, I will have little over a year." Ivan looked back to her. "I am not starting that treatment shit, so Max says I will have somewhere around seven months before I keel over." Ivan laughed a little at the last part, he was talking about his impending death like it was nothing.

"Well, if you can do what Sully and that other Avatar did...what's his name? Uhh...something with an N. If you can do what they did you will be fine right?" Katherine asked as she walked back over to Ivan with her breakfast.

"Ya, I will be fine. My Avatar isn't messed up like me." Ivan finally sipped his coffee and nearly spat it back out. "I don't know how I can screw up working a coffee machine, all you do is add freaking water but I did something wrong."

Katherine laughed, "Ya, I tasted some of it. What the hell did you do?" Ivan just shrugged in response.

"Well anyway, if Cpl. Sully can become one of those Na'vi in three months, then raise an army and kick all the assholes off the planet. Then you, Master Sergeant can do all that in more in seven months." She patted Ivan on the shoulder. More footsteps were coming, everyone else was waking up.

Ivan thought about his Rank in the RDA. Besides Sully, he was the only other military man in the Avatar division. Only his long military past, and special skill set had allowed him the first Avatar made for non-science personnel. He only wondered what would have happened if he caught the opportunity Jake had when he got lost in the Jungle. It probably would not have been a good one; Jake fell in love and had regained the ability to walk. Ivan however gained little from his Avatar body, and falling in love; Ivan laughed at the Idea, he knew he was incapable of that. He probably would have ended up getting orders to kill off their leader and assist in taking down hometree, and he probably would have followed through on those orders.

"It's not that I don't think I can do it, it's that...I don't know if I want to be one of them. It's amazing, being in the Avatar body but this is me." Ivan pointed at himself. "This has been me for all my life, and now I have to give this body up and just jump into another one."

'Not that I really mind my other body,' he thought, 'fewer aches and pains.'

"But I will be giving up what I am, where I come from...what I have done will not leave me just because I have jumped ship. I don't know if I can live in a tree, be peaceful, live with nature, and all that hippie-tree-hugger-bullshit."

Another voice broke in, it was Max. "Well if you don't get over it and you decide to just sit around for the rest of the year, we are going to find you dead in your room one day."

Ivan and Katherine looked at the bearded scientist while he walked up with his breakfast.

"Well that's true." Ivan said. "Have to at least try living like them."

"Well there you go then." Katherine said to Ivan. "Good luck talking to Jake and good luck with that hippie stuff. Well I am off to do the same shit I do every other day." She then walked off.

"What does she do?" Ivan asked Max.

"Same thing all the others do, try and keep this place from falling apart around us. A place designed to hold thousands of people needs a lot of upkeep, hard to do with 60 people." Max said almost as if it was a joke. "Even though we cut off a lot of unessential areas this place is still hard to keep up with, things are always breaking. I don't see how we are going to last for the rest of our lives." Max said grimly. "Well anyway, I am going to finish eating and I will go get the links ready...You going to finish your coffee?"

"Coffee tastes like shit...so no. I am going to go exercise and I will be at the link room later."

With that Ivan headed out to the indoor training area. Even though he spent more and more time linked to his Avatar, he still had to take care of this body; if he didn't he could end up dying a lot sooner than seven months. He ran the obstacle course several times, then forty push ups, sit ups and pull ups. By the time he was done he was ready for a shower.

He was on his way back to his room when suddenly his chest tightened up and his lungs burned. He stopped and started coughing like a madman, he couldn't breathe. He fell to his knees and tried to calm himself down, he was starting to hyperventilate. He tried to slow his breathing but he was coughing uncontrollably and that made breathing even harder. After several minutes of sitting in the empty hall coughing his guts out he was finally able to slow his breathing. His chest felt like it was on fire and his throat was sore from coughing, he noticed a small bit of blood on his lips and on the floor in front of him.

"God damnit, after hundreds of years they still can't makes ones that don't kill you." Ivan huffed out in his native Russian tongue.

He wiped up the blood on the floor and got to his room and showered. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, his gray hair cut short, his face bearing the scars of too many battles, he thought he looked like a monster, but he put his past aside and got dressed. He had been having more and more fits every week, and now he was coughing up blood. He thought about telling Max but decided against it, for no other reason than just not wanting to tell him. He drank down some vodka he had stashed in his room and it burnt on his sore throat. His lungs still felt like fire, but they were always hurting.

When he got to the link room Max asked him why he was gone so long, Ivan said he just stopped to talk and Max said that was a bad lie because he never 'stops to talk', and Max was right; Ivan didn't have many friends. 'Hell' he thought 'I wonder if Jake will even remember me, it's been a year and we didn't really talk before then'. But Ivan put those thoughts aside as he climbed in the link pod and closed the lid.

He listened to the sounds of the machine getting ready to rip his mind out of his body and force it into another, his views on how the linking process worked were a bit more violent than how it actually was; but he didn't pay attention when it was all explained to him, just more science mumbo-jumbo.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift away, through the tunnel of rapidly changing light and then into searing white at the end. His vision quickly focused and he adjusted to the feel of his 'other me'. He drew a deep satisfying breath, and there was no pain in that breath. Only when he was linked did the burning in his chest stop, but occasionally he could feel the pain bleed through, sometimes it would break the link for a second.

He went out and performed the same morning routine as his other body, eating from the gardens in the Avatar compound and running the obstacle course, and showering again. 'Didn't I just do this?' He thought, 'I did, well, minus the almost dying in the hallway.'

He decided to wear what he had on the day they took over Hell's gate, camo cargo pants, jungle boots, black muscle shirt, and his favorite jacket. He looked at the old jacket before putting it on; it had three bullet holes in it, three bullet holes that lined up with the three scars on his Avatar body.

Ivan was getting ready to link up and he told the people monitoring the links to pull him out if any of the RDA goons busted in. He then linked up to help the others take Hell's Gate. After about ten minutes of combat he found himself under fire from a lone soldier, he waited for the enemy to expend all his ammo. Ivan jumped out too finish him, but then he felt the link break...but before he transferred back to his human body he felt pain rip through his left shoulder.

He pulled himself out of his flashback, he noticed he was sweating; the flashbacks were so real to him, like he was re-living that moment. He was lucky he was pulled from the link though; it spared him the pain of getting shot multiple times, and allowed him to stop several RDA goons from killing all the drivers while they were linked.

He put the jacket on and walked outside of the Avatar cabin, in a few hours Jake would be here, and hopefully he would be leaving with him. Ivan laughed as a thought entered his head, 'Ivan, you must become what you hate in order to live...a hippie.' He didn't really hate hippies but he didn't like the idea of a hippie.

An hour later he heard his comm-unit come to life. It was Jake's voice "Attention Hell's gate, this is Jake Sully, ETA about ten mikes." The next part was said jokingly "make sure the perimeter towers don't gun down me and my friends."

Ivan started out towards where Jake always held the meetings, the prep-room, where the Avatars are prepared for linking, when they first arrived, it has higher ceilings so he can stand without hunching over.

Ivan waited, and finally he saw four figures approaching from over the trees, banshees, or Ikrans as the natives called them. "It's, Jake and friends." Ivan mumbled to himself, he then let out a sigh and gathered his thoughts. 'No worries, this next bit will determine life or death for you, no pressure.'

Well, that's all I got for a start, I have most of the story already planned out though. Just thought I would stop here.

I think there was too much talking, but that's up to you to decide. Also not telling a lot about Ivan because I think its

better not to know, maybe someone can guess what's wrong with him, pretty simple really.

Oh, and I don't know Russian, I just ran it through a translator. *EDIT* that was a bad Idea, so no more translator; they never work

Hey REVIEW! Please...please

Another chapter tomorrow, or maybe even today if I feel like it.